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Improve Your Record to Report - Journal Entry

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Improve Your Record to Report - Journal Entry
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Optimize Workiva Journal Entry for Faster Record to Report

This platform helps you pinpoint common inefficiencies that delay your financial close process. You can identify bottlenecks from the start of an activity through its completion, ensuring accuracy and speeding up reporting. Discover how to streamline operations and enhance overall efficiency across your workflows.

Download our pre-configured data template and address common challenges to reach your efficiency goals. Follow our six-step improvement plan and consult the Data Template Guide to transform your operations.

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Why Optimizing Record to Report - Journal Entry is Crucial

The Record to Report, R2R, cycle is fundamental to a company's financial health and regulatory compliance. At its core, the Journal Entry process, especially when managed within a robust platform like Workiva, demands precision and efficiency. Inefficient journal entry processes can lead to significant bottlenecks, delaying month-end and year-end closes, increasing the risk of errors, and potentially impacting financial statement accuracy. These inefficiencies translate directly into higher operational costs, increased audit scrutiny, and a reduced ability to make timely, informed business decisions. For organizations leveraging Workiva for their financial reporting and compliance, understanding and optimizing the complete lifecycle of each journal entry is not just an advantage, it is a necessity to maintain competitive edge and meet stringent reporting deadlines.

How Process Mining Transforms Workiva Journal Entry Analysis

Process mining offers a powerful, data-driven approach to demystifying the complexities of your Record to Report - Journal Entry process in Workiva. Instead of relying on assumptions or anecdotal evidence, process mining uses actual event logs, with the Journal Entry ID serving as a unique case identifier, to reconstruct and visualize the entire process flow as it truly happens. This perspective tracks each journal entry from its initial creation through all subsequent activities, including supporting documentation attachment, submission for review, approval or rejection cycles, corrections, posting, verification, and eventual reconciliation. By mapping this complete lifecycle, process mining capabilities allow you to pinpoint exact process deviations, identify where manual interventions cause delays, and measure the precise duration of each step, providing objective insights into how to improve Record to Report - Journal Entry cycle time. It reveals hidden bottlenecks in your Workiva workflow, whether they are in specific review stages or during reconciliation, ensuring you have a clear picture of operational performance.

Pinpointing and Resolving Journal Entry Bottlenecks

With process mining, you can specifically identify critical areas for improvement within your Workiva Journal Entry process. For instance, the analysis might reveal that certain types of journal entries consistently take longer to approve, or that specific approvers are frequently overloaded, creating delays. You can uncover instances where journal entries are repeatedly rejected and resubmitted, indicating a need for clearer guidelines or better training for initial entry creation. Furthermore, process mining helps to identify non-compliant process paths, such as entries being posted without proper approval, which poses significant financial and regulatory risks. Typical improvements include standardizing journal entry submission procedures, optimizing approval hierarchies, reducing rework by improving initial data quality, and automating verification steps. This targeted approach enables effective process optimization, ensuring your Workiva usage for journal entries is streamlined and efficient.

Tangible Benefits of Optimized Journal Entry Processes

Implementing process mining for your Record to Report - Journal Entry in Workiva yields a multitude of measurable benefits. Expect a significant reduction in your financial close cycle time, allowing your finance teams to allocate more resources to strategic analysis rather than manual reconciliation and error correction. By precisely identifying and addressing bottlenecks, you will achieve greater operational efficiency, leading to lower processing costs per journal entry. Enhanced compliance and audit readiness are also key outcomes, as process mining provides transparent, data-backed evidence of adherence to internal controls and regulatory requirements. Ultimately, improving your Journal Entry process through data-driven insights from process mining strengthens financial accuracy, reduces compliance risk, and fosters a more agile and responsive finance function, maximizing your investment in the Workiva platform.

Embarking on Your Journal Entry Optimization Journey

Understanding the actual flow of your Record to Report - Journal Entry process within Workiva is the first step towards achieving superior financial operations. By leveraging process mining, you gain the clarity needed to make informed decisions and implement targeted improvements. This approach empowers you to go beyond guesswork, allowing you to proactively tackle inefficiencies and achieve a faster, more accurate, and more compliant financial close. Discover how easily you can apply these insights to your own Workiva data and start your journey towards significant process optimization today, even without extensive technical expertise. It's about transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and efficiency.

Record to Report - Journal Entry Financial Close Journal Entry Processing Accounting Operations Compliance Management Financial Reporting Accountants Finance Team R2R Optimization Workflow Efficiency

Common Problems & Challenges

Identify which challenges are impacting you

Journal entries often stall in approval queues, leading to missed deadlines and a prolonged financial close. This impacts the timely generation of financial reports, hindering critical business decisions and increasing stress on accounting teams.ProcessMind reveals precisely where and why journal entries get stuck, identifying specific approvers or stages causing bottlenecks in your Record to Report - Journal Entry process within Workiva. This insight allows for targeted improvements to accelerate approvals.

Frequent rejections or requests for corrections mean journal entries cycle repeatedly through review, consuming valuable time and resources. This rework not only extends the Record to Report cycle but also leads to frustration and reduced efficiency for finance teams.ProcessMind uncovers the specific reasons for recurring rejections and identifies problematic entry types or users, enabling you to address root causes. By optimizing the Journal Entry process in Workiva, you can significantly reduce rework and streamline operations.

Manual errors in journal entry creation or posting lead to financial inaccuracies, requiring time-consuming corrections and potentially impacting compliance. These errors can propagate through the system, creating significant challenges for reconciliation and reporting.ProcessMind identifies patterns of common errors and pinpoints the stages or users most prone to making them within your Workiva Journal Entry process. This data-driven insight helps implement preventative measures, improving financial accuracy for Record to Report.

Without clear visibility into the real-time status of each journal entry, it's difficult to forecast financial close timelines and proactively address delays. This uncertainty creates stress and impedes effective resource allocation within accounting operations.ProcessMind provides a comprehensive, real-time map of your Record to Report - Journal Entry process, tracking each entry from creation to reconciliation in Workiva. This transparency empowers teams to monitor progress and intervene promptly, preventing bottlenecks.

Deviations from standardized journal entry procedures lead to inconsistencies, compliance risks, and inefficiencies across the organization. This fragmented approach can make auditing challenging and hinder efforts to scale operations effectively.ProcessMind visualizes all existing process variants for journal entries, highlighting where and why deviations occur within Workiva. By identifying these non-standard paths, you can enforce best practices and improve governance for the Record to Report cycle.

Delays in reconciling posted journal entries leave discrepancies unresolved, increasing audit risks and prolonging the overall financial close. This can obscure the true financial position and lead to critical reporting issues.ProcessMind meticulously analyzes the reconciliation activities within your Workiva Journal Entry process, identifying specific bottlenecks or factors contributing to delays. This allows for targeted interventions to accelerate the Record to Report cycle.

Some team members or departments are overloaded with journal entry tasks, while others have capacity, leading to burnout and delays. This imbalance affects overall productivity and can impact employee morale within the finance team.ProcessMind quantifies the workload per user and team in your Workiva Journal Entry process, revealing imbalances and identifying resource bottlenecks. This data enables more equitable distribution of tasks, enhancing efficiency in Record to Report.

Failing to adhere to internal controls or regulatory requirements in journal entry processing can result in audit findings, penalties, and reputational damage. Ensuring strict compliance is critical for financial integrity.ProcessMind continuously monitors your Record to Report - Journal Entry process in Workiva, detecting any deviations from established compliance rules. It highlights instances of unauthorized changes or delayed approvals that could pose risks.

Inefficient sequencing of tasks or redundant steps in the journal entry process waste valuable time and resources, extending the overall Record to Report cycle. This prevents the finance team from achieving peak operational efficiency.ProcessMind maps the complete "as-is" workflow for journal entries in Workiva, revealing hidden inefficiencies and unnecessary steps. This analysis provides the insights needed to redesign the process for optimal performance and faster closes.

Frequent reversals of posted journal entries indicate underlying issues with accuracy or initial processing, leading to significant rework and potential integrity concerns. Each reversal requires additional effort and scrutiny.ProcessMind traces each journal entry reversal back to its origin in Workiva, identifying common triggers and root causes. This detailed analysis helps prevent future errors, improving the quality and reliability of your Record to Report process.

Journal entries often face delays because required supporting documentation is not attached promptly or is incomplete. This issue stalls the review and approval stages, extending the financial close cycle.ProcessMind tracks the timing of "Supporting Documentation Attached" activity relative to journal entry creation and submission in Workiva. It identifies specific instances and patterns of delay, enabling targeted interventions to streamline the Record to Report process.

Typical Goals

Define what success looks like

This goal aims to significantly reduce the time taken for journal entries to move through review and approval stages within Workiva. By shortening these cycles, organizations can accelerate their financial close process, improve reporting timelines, and ensure financial data is available faster for critical decision-making.ProcessMind can identify specific bottlenecks in the approval workflow, revealing where delays occur and which approvers or steps are causing holdups. It provides data-driven insights to streamline approval matrices, automate routine approvals, and implement more efficient routing rules, potentially cutting approval times by 30-50% and improving overall Record to Report efficiency.

Reducing rework means minimizing instances where journal entries are rejected, corrected, and resubmitted due to errors or missing information. This directly impacts operational efficiency and reduces wasted effort in the Record to Report cycle. Less rework translates to lower operational costs, faster processing times, and improved data quality within Workiva.ProcessMind meticulously maps all variations of the journal entry process, highlighting loops and rework cycles. It pinpoints the root causes of rejections, such as common errors, incomplete documentation, or unclear instructions, enabling targeted improvements to submission quality and approval criteria, leading to a 20-40% reduction in rework.

This goal focuses on decreasing the number of errors introduced during the manual creation or data entry of journal entries. High error rates lead to inaccurate financial statements, require costly corrections, and can delay the financial close. By achieving this, companies enhance data integrity and reduce compliance risks in Workiva.ProcessMind uncovers where manual data entry errors most frequently occur by analyzing rejected or corrected entries. It identifies specific activities, users, or entry types prone to errors, providing insights to implement stricter validation rules, enhance user training, or automate data input where possible, aiming for a 15-25% reduction in manual errors.

This goal aims to provide real-time or near real-time insight into the status of every journal entry, from creation to posting and reconciliation. Lack of visibility causes uncertainty, requires manual follow-ups, and can delay the overall Record to Report process. Improved visibility allows finance teams to proactively manage workflows.ProcessMind creates a comprehensive visual map of the journal entry journey, enabling stakeholders to track each entry's current status and identify where it is in the process. This transparent view highlights potential bottlenecks before they impact the financial close, empowering teams to take immediate action and improve forecasting of reporting timelines.

Standardizing journal entry workflows means ensuring that all entries follow a consistent, optimized path, regardless of their type or originating department. Non-standard processes lead to inefficiencies, compliance risks, and varying processing times. Achieving standardization ensures predictable outcomes and easier auditing within Workiva.ProcessMind discovers all actual process variants for journal entries, revealing deviations from the ideal or intended path. It quantifies the impact of non-standardization on cycle times and resource utilization, providing the data needed to enforce best practices, consolidate steps, and streamline the workflow for greater consistency and efficiency across the Record to Report cycle.

This goal focuses on reducing the time it takes to reconcile journal entries after posting. Slow reconciliation prolongs the financial close and can obscure discrepancies, leading to delayed identification of issues. Accelerating this step is crucial for timely and accurate financial reporting.ProcessMind analyzes the post-posting activities for journal entries, identifying delays and dependencies in the reconciliation process. It uncovers common issues that prolong reconciliation, such as data mismatches or lack of clear ownership, allowing for targeted improvements in data quality, automation of matching tasks, and clearer procedural guidelines, aiming for 20-35% faster reconciliation.

This goal aims to distribute the tasks associated with journal entries more evenly among team members and across different stages of the process. Uneven workload can lead to burnout for some, idle time for others, and bottlenecks when specific individuals or teams are overloaded, impacting the overall efficiency of the Record to Report cycle.ProcessMind provides insights into resource utilization by tracking who performs which activities and for how long. It reveals workload peaks and valleys, identifying overloaded or underutilized resources. This data supports optimal resource allocation, cross-training initiatives, and intelligent queue management, improving team productivity and reducing processing times in Workiva.

This goal ensures that all journal entries strictly adhere to internal policies, accounting standards, and external regulatory requirements. Compliance gaps can lead to financial penalties, reputational damage, and audit failures. Achieving this strengthens the integrity of financial reporting in Workiva.ProcessMind can automatically detect deviations from predefined compliance rules or standard operating procedures within the journal entry process. It identifies specific instances of non-compliance, such as missing approvals or incorrect GL account usage, providing audit trails and allowing organizations to enforce stricter controls, implement automated checks, and proactively address compliance risks before they become critical issues.

This goal is about restructuring and improving the overall sequence of activities in the journal entry process to eliminate unnecessary steps, combine related tasks, and improve logical flow. Suboptimal design leads to longer cycle times, increased costs, and frustrated employees. A well-designed workflow is crucial for efficiency and user experience.ProcessMind visualizes the actual end-to-end journey of journal entries, highlighting complex paths, unnecessary handoffs, and activities that add little value. It allows for simulation of proposed changes, predicting their impact on key performance indicators before implementation, enabling the design of a lean and efficient Record to Report process in Workiva.

This goal targets a reduction in the number of journal entries that need to be reversed after being posted. High reversal rates often indicate underlying issues like incorrect initial entries, improper approvals, or changes in accounting policies, leading to additional work and potential discrepancies in financial records.ProcessMind identifies the specific types of journal entries and the stages at which reversals most frequently occur. It uncovers the reasons behind these reversals, such as data input errors or misinterpretations of policy, allowing for targeted interventions to improve the accuracy of initial entries, refine approval criteria, and enhance user training within Workiva, aiming for a 10-20% reduction.

This goal focuses on guaranteeing that every journal entry has all necessary supporting documentation attached and validated at the appropriate stages of the process. Delays due to missing documentation can halt approvals, prolong processing times, and pose significant compliance risks during audits.ProcessMind can track the presence and timing of supporting documentation attachment activities relative to other steps in the journal entry workflow. It highlights where documentation is frequently missing or delayed, pinpointing specific users or entry types. This enables the implementation of mandatory attachment rules or automated reminders, significantly reducing delays and improving audit readiness for Workiva's Record to Report processes.

This overarching goal aims to reduce the total duration required to complete the entire financial close process, specifically focusing on the contribution of journal entry processing. The financial close is a critical, time-sensitive period, and any delays in journal entries can cascade, impacting reporting deadlines and strategic decision-making.ProcessMind provides an end-to-end view of the journal entry process within the broader Record to Report cycle, revealing how individual delays or inefficiencies impact the overall financial close timeline. By identifying and resolving bottlenecks in creation, approval, posting, and reconciliation of journal entries in Workiva, organizations can achieve a faster, more predictable financial close, potentially cutting days off the monthly cycle.

The 6-Step Improvement Path for Journal Entry in Workiva

1

Download the Template
2

Export Your Data
3

Upload Your Dataset
4

Analyze Your Process
5

Implement Improvements
6

Monitor Your Process
1

Download the Template

What to do

Get the Excel template specifically designed for Journal Entry processes. This template provides the correct structure for your Workiva data.

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Why it matters

Using the correct data structure from the start ensures accurate analysis and saves time in data preparation for ProcessMind.

Expected outcome

A ready-to-fill Excel template for your Workiva Journal Entry data.

WHAT YOU WILL GET

Visualize Workiva Journal Entry for Faster Close

ProcessMind reveals the true path of your Workiva journal entries. Discover where bottlenecks occur and how to streamline your Record to Report workflow for greater efficiency.
  • Visualize journal entry end-to-end flow
  • Identify exact delays in Workiva workflow
  • Spot compliance risks and errors early
  • Accelerate Record to Report cycle time
Discover your actual process flow
Discover your actual process flow
Identify bottlenecks and delays
Identify bottlenecks and delays
Analyze process variants
Analyze process variants
Design your optimized process
Design your optimized process

TYPICAL OUTCOMES

Measurable Improvements in Journal Entry Processes

These outcomes illustrate the tangible benefits organizations achieve by applying process mining to their Journal Entry workflows. By identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies in Workiva, our solutions drive significant operational improvements across the Record to Report process.

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Faster Approval Cycle

Average reduction in approval time

Streamline the journal entry approval process by identifying bottlenecks, leading to quicker sign-offs and less waiting time.
0 %
Lower Rework Rates

Decrease in rejected or corrected entries

Reduce the percentage of journal entries requiring corrections or re-submissions, improving accuracy and saving significant processing time.
0 %
Enhanced Compliance

Increase in process conformance

Ensure a higher percentage of journal entries adhere to standard operating procedures and regulatory requirements, strengthening audit readiness and control.
~ 0 days
Shorter Financial Close

Reduction in end-to-end cycle time

Accelerate the overall Record to Report process by optimizing journal entry creation to reconciliation, contributing to a faster financial close.
0 %
Higher First-Pass Accuracy

Increase in entries approved without rework

Improve the quality of initial journal entry submissions, leading to a higher rate of approvals on the first attempt and fewer delays.

Results vary based on process complexity and data quality. These figures represent typical improvements observed across implementations.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

Process mining provides an objective, data-driven view of your actual Journal Entry workflows. It uncovers bottlenecks, rework loops, and non-standard procedures that hinder efficiency and compliance, allowing for targeted improvements.

You will need an event log dataset from Workiva, which includes a case identifier, activity name, and timestamp for each step of a journal entry. The Journal Entry ID typically serves as the case identifier. Workiva's robust reporting and API capabilities usually facilitate this extraction.

Initial high-level process visualizations and immediate bottleneck identification can often be achieved within a few weeks of successful data ingestion. Deeper root cause analysis and specific optimization recommendations typically follow within one to three months.

You can expect significant improvements such as accelerated journal entry approvals, reduced manual error rates, and lower rework percentages. Additionally, it helps standardize processes, strengthen compliance adherence, and ultimately improve the timeliness of your financial close.

Extracting data from Workiva is generally straightforward using its built-in reporting features or API access. While some initial setup may be required, Workiva is designed to allow users to pull detailed transactional histories, which are ideal for process mining.

No, process mining is a non-intrusive analytical technique. It operates on historical data extracted from Workiva, so it does not interfere with or require changes to your live Journal Entry systems or ongoing financial processes.

Traditional reporting typically shows aggregated metrics, like average processing times or volumes, while process mining visualizes the actual end-to-end flow of every journal entry. This reveals all deviations, rework loops, and hidden inefficiencies that standard reports often miss.

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